[polymathist]

I happen to know a few hackathon organizers and have an idea of how these things work under the hood. I wouldn't be so quick to judge. The reason Penn's hackathon is application only is that they literally can only support a certain number of participants. There's a limit to how many people they can feed, fit in one building, control in a big crowd, etc. Some hackathons manage this limit by accepting participants first come, first serve. Penn decided to take what they consider to be the best applicants, and I don't blame them for that. Their goal as organizers is to impress sponsors enough so that they can do it again next year. There's no evidence that this sort of conversation happened.

People are right in criticizing some aspects of the hackathon culture, but be careful about generalizations. For example, HackDuke has taken steps to include beginners with a series of seminars in the off-season (and by offering a beginner prize), encourage projects that do social good (as opposed to just "hacks"), and they encourage people to continue working on their projects after the hackathon is over. Disclaimer: I went to Duke and participated in their hackathons (and greatly enjoyed them!).